Sea shanties and maritime music

To those who know and can feel, there is a smack of salt spray in every line of these rude virile verses. To them once again will come back the creak of the blocks as the falls whine through them, and the dead heavy lurch as the boat jerks upwards... I can hardly think of any words or tunes that appeal more intimately to all the spirit of adventure that life has left in me.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Letter to F. T. Bullen, 1914

This Day in History (February 29, 1908)

This Day in History (January 8, 1806)

The death of Lord Nelson was a national tragedy like no other for England. "From Greenwich to Whitehall Stairs, on the 8th of January, 1806, in one of the greatest Aquatic Processions that ever was beheld on the River Thames" drifted the royal shallop (barge). The event is referenced in the modern lament, Carrying Nelson Home. Nelson is mentioned in nearly a dozen other songs.

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